[Supreme Goddess]

This is so subjective. I mean, there are puzzles we all throw the towel in over and get a walkthrough, but for real frustration, simply include some action in an adventure game.

Timelapse - a lovely puzzle based game kept me stuck in one spot for several months trying to shoot an arrow through a hole in a rock out there in the middle of the canyon. Of course the wind would always take it away... Damn!

Wonderful game but I won't replay it because of that one puzzle.

[crabapple]

You should have kept a saved game from after that arrow shooting sequence.
Then you could replay the game and use that save when the time came.




Edit - found a save online from after shooting the arrow
http://www.mysterymanor.net/pafiledb...60&sortby=name

[jelly3]

Originally Posted by Zanthia

Almost all puzzles of the discword 1

Nah, it was every puzzle in Rama, you really do have to be a rocket scientist to play it.


jelly3

The puzzles in Discworld 1 had a lovely logic of their own. In a sense, they made perfect sense. (Afterwards, when I'd consulted a walkthrough.)

[Brian]

Gabriel Knight 3: I don't know how many times I heard/saw Gabe get sliced to death with that swinging blade. Though the most painful puzzle might be the globe puzzle in The Journeyman Project Turbo. As while I know my geography the use of the trackball was awkward and at times difficult and toss in it was a timed puzzle too, I remember cursing my computer many atime. Then there's the Myst rocketship puzzle which was impossible because of my tone deafness.

[jenny]

I had problems with the Egyptian Puzzle on the door in Shivers, still though! It makes me

Also the Heliopolis Prophecy where you must drum on the beat of the music.

The end of Gabriel Knight 3 where you have to jump on that slash thing and then to the center cost me many lives

[Stalker]

Originally Posted by Fienepien

The puzzles in Discworld 1 had a lovely logic of their own. In a sense, they made perfect sense. (Afterwards, when I'd consulted a walkthrough.)

Discworld could have been hard, but not frustrating, if it had given you more nudges in the right direction (instead of "That doesn't work"). Also, you had like 20-30 inventory items with you all the time and a billion places to visit - with smaller places and less items at once, the puzzles wouldn't have been as bad as they were, either.

But as it was, the game was rather insane. I managed to finish around 1 1/2 acts on my own, then I broke down and bought a walkthrough - something I'd never done before.

[Sleepy]

Frustrating, Confusing and Just Downright Illogical
My Rant...

Starship Titanic: The Chicken puzzle --the chicken is key to completing the entire game and you only get one, so if you cause it to be dispensed before you know what to do with it (which invariably everyone does while exploring) you immediately illiminated any chance of being able to complete the game (plus, even with the walkthrough it's one of the most complicated and difficult timed puzzles I've ever come accross).

The Watchmaker: if the cook goes to his room before you get the information from him that you need to continue in the adventure, unless you have an earlier save-file, you'll have to start a new game.

Amerzone: The grapple-winch sequence --one of the hotspots for the grapple-winch was so small I actually ended up consulting a walkthrough because I couldn't figure out what to do next (i.e.: keep using the grapple-winch to continue up the river.) and even then it was tricky to find.

Zork Grand Inquisitor: The sluce-gates puzzle (where all the sluce-gates have to be closed)

Spoiler:

it's impossible to close all the sluce gates at the same time-- the solution is to use a spell which makes it possible. (I spent ages on this puzzle trying to close the gates and couldn't work out why I couldn't solve it (up to that point I'd unsuccessfully tried spells on almost everything apart from that puzzle)

Obsidian: The bureaux maintainance-form puzzle --to solve this puzzle you have to work through a whole series of possible solutions each one less plausible than the last.

Revelation (Myst IV): The Spire spider-throne puzzle --you could read more sense into a psychotic dillusion, plus I didn't understand if I should be solving the spider-throne or just understanding that...

Spoiler:

...this was the method that Sirrus had used to escape.

Apart from it being an object in an adventure game I didn't understand why I should be solving it-- I didn't understand my motivation/the incentive (I checked a walkthrough as much to understand whether it was solvable (and not just a plot-point) as I did to get help with the solution (the in-game walkthough was also confusing and misleading-- for instance I thought the wire-gears only had two positions-- up & down. Further to that it counts the first gear-slot as position 2.)) It was also one of the worst timed sequences I've ever seen in an adventure game (which is a real shame for such a great series).

Grim Fandango: Making the bet to get the picture --I consulted a walkthrough for this one and still don't really see the logic of it (I know nothing about betting or why you should be given a photo for placing a bet). Grabbing the underwater singing guy (although finally grabbing him was a wonderful feeling). Locating the item in the field at the end of the game (not good if you have high blood-pressure)

7th Guest: The bacteria puzzle -- the bacteria puzzle is 'offically documented' as being impossible. The only way past it is to click through it's corresponding page in the book on the coffee table three times to bypass it.


Longest Journey:

Originally Posted by Jakek

I think I've mentioned it before, but using the clamp and rubber duck with a bandaid from a pair of gloves to get a key in a subway always seemed silly.

This solution totally confused me-- it didn't make any real sense...it would be impossible in reality and plus why would April Ryan handle a used band-aid & put something she'd just dragged out of a sewer to her lips to inflate? It wouldn't even occur to me that someone like April Ryan would do this, and I'm pretty sure that's not culturally determined.

This is illustrative of a much bigger problem in adventure gaming-- the illogical solution. Grey describes a problem I now have with almost all adventure games:

[QUOTE=Grey]One of the worst I've seen is in Tony Tough and the Night of Roasted Moths:

Spoiler:

A wood crate inside the castle might need to be pried open. I have a big stick and a hammer in my inventory. Neither worked so I figured the crate was just another of the countless red herrings you'll find in this game. Wrong. The correct tool for opening the crate is a boar's foot..."

As a result, I no longer trusted the game and the good puzzles were spoiled because I had to keep peeking at a walkthrough to see if I was being led to another bad one.[QUOTE]

These days at the first sign of a potentially ludicrous solution I go directly to a walkthrough, which is a shame because of what it implies about the genre as a whole...

...need I mention cat hair and honey packets?

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by Sleepy

These days at the first sign of a potentially ludicrous solution I go directly to a walkthrough, which is a shame because of what it implies about the genre as a whole...

...need I mention cat hair and honey packets?

No, you don't.

Originally Posted by Sleepy

7th Guest: The bacteria puzzle -- the bacteria puzzle is 'offically documented' as being impossible. The only way past it is to click through it's corresponding page in the book on the coffee table three times to bypass it.

Not true. It is possible. I've done it. Twice.

[Dale Baldwin]

Originally Posted by SamNMax

Not true. It is possible. I've done it. Twice.

Closest I got was a draw - talk about frustrating.

[Sleepy]

Originally Posted by SamNMax

Not true. It is possible. I've done it. Twice.

My apologies-- I just pulled out the strategy guide and it appears I must have mis-read the explanation for the puzzle. It reads:

"To our knowledge, nobody has a consistent strategy to beat this game...if anyone has been able to develop a consistent, repeatable strategy, send us a note.
One thing the computer (Stauf) will not do is move into an area of two empty spaces surrounded by other cells. This is obvious because then you could move into the remaining space and grab all those cells! Perhaps there's a strategy that makes use of this."

Also, as regards the difficulty level, it reads:

"Return to the library and read the book of hints, the AI of the Microscope game will decrease a little until, on the third visit to the Library, the puzzle will be solved for you."

I came very close to beating it once, but I think I must have just assumed it was impossible (like going second in tic-tac-toe)

[Risingson]

Originally Posted by jelly3

Nah, it was every puzzle in Rama, you really do have to be a rocket scientist to play it.


jelly3

Not at all, at least the game tells you the rules.

Unlike Schizm 2 :eek:

[Risingson]

Originally Posted by Sleepy

I came very close to beating it once, but I think I must have just assumed it was impossible (like going second in tic-tac-toe)

No, there is just one hole in the IA in that game. I managed to solve it once.

And I celebrated it during the whole week.

[Crypto]

Originally Posted by Sleepy

Grim Fandango: Making the bet to get the picture --I consulted a walkthrough for this one and still don't really see the logic of it (I know nothing about betting or why you should be given a photo for placing a bet).

I consulted a walkthrough too.

[AFGNCAAP]

Originally Posted by Sleepy

Zork Grand Inquisitor: The sluce-gates puzzle (where all the sluce-gates have to be closed)

Spoiler:

it's impossible to close all the sluce gates at the same time-- the solution is to use a spell which makes it possible. (I spent ages on this puzzle trying to close the gates and couldn't work out why I couldn't solve it (up to that point I'd unsuccessfully tried spells on almost everything apart from that puzzle)

The most basic maths shows that you cannot solve it only pressing the buttons,

Spoiler:

while every push changes state of exactly two gates. So you'll never get from odd to even number of closed gates.

Not that I saw it right away, but it was far from unfair.

[Sleepy]

I guess I should have seen it but I just assumed it must be possible.

I'd tried a lot of the spells on a lot of different objects and I guess the response that I got from the voice-over kind of put me off trying.

But having said that I think I'm probably being unfair to the game-- I was up late playing (again) when I was trying to solve it and I was tired and not really concentrating.

[dazsin]

One in 'Runaway' springs to mind, where you need the key to the fridge in the drag queens caravan. I must have moved my mouse onto every single pixel a million times searching for it - the game strongly hinted that it was in the bloody caravan somewhere...

yeah the times where you miss an item are always the worst. But the joy when your mouse hovers over something new....

[DustCropper]

Originally Posted by Sleepy

Zork Grand Inquisitor: The sluce-gates puzzle (where all the sluce-gates have to be closed)

Spoiler:

it's impossible to close all the sluce gates at the same time-- the solution is to use a spell which makes it possible. (I spent ages on this puzzle trying to close the gates and couldn't work out why I couldn't solve it (up to that point I'd unsuccessfully tried spells on almost everything apart from that puzzle)

Actually I really enjoyed that puzzle. I too spent a long time trying to close the gates normally until I stumbled upon the solution (dumb luck, probably). What I really loved about it though, was that the lantern-guy congratulates you, and it made me feel pretty good.

[Eye-Z]

Originally Posted by Isak

The goat puzzle in Broken Sword 1. Not even a real puzzle!

yea good god, that, and in BS2, with the wild boar if you don't save it before, and you don't grab the branch when you shoot it with the dart you have to start all over again. only puzzle i had to cheat on in both games.